Mark Schatz and Bryan McDowell, two singular voices in the bluegrass and old-time world, are finishing their current tour this Saturday (August 26) at the “Honky Tonk on Hazel” house concert series in West Philadelphia. They spoke with Philly Bluegrass about their collaboration and their album, Grit & Polish.
To attend this Saturday’s show, RSVP here to receive the house address. Doors are at 7pm. Show at 8pm. $20-$30 suggested donation.
Q: Can you tell us a little about how this project started?
Mark: There’s a wonderful Canadian program called “Home Routes,” which was started by old friend and folk music empresario Mitch Podolak, which is being carried on by his son, Leonard (Founder of the Duhks). They set up strings of house concerts and small venues across Canada for solo and duo configurations. Bryan agreed to do a southern Ontario run with me in the fall of 2020, so he came up from Asheville, NC in February of that year to put a show together, and we recorded tracks in my basement studio for a CD that we could sell on that tour.
There was such a great synergy when we played together that we decided to book some more gigs that year. Then Covid shut everything down. I edited the tracks and we decided to release it on Patuxent Music, a local Maryland label that I’d worked with before. Normally we would have toured to support the release, which would have meant putting off its release until things started opening again. But that was so up in the air that we decided to release it in 2021, and hired another old friend, Kari Estrin, to do radio promotion. It went to the top of the DJ folk charts that year. So, the pandemic certainly impacted our plans, and put a crimp in the customary release/touring strategy. But we’ve been able to book a few nice tours nonetheless, including a California run in the summer of 2022, a Southeast U.S. run this past June, and a Northeast run, in which this “Honky Tonk on Hazel” show is included.
Q: Between Mark and you, there’s so much quality musicianship across an intimidatingly broad range of instruments. With so many choices available, can you walk us through how you decided what ended up on the album Grit & Polish?
Bryan: I don’t know if it was articulated, but we just knew we wanted to capture some of our range in an honest way.
It was a given that we needed to feature Mark’s original tunes. By the time of the album, I had a couple of my own to try out, so we took a while listening to each other’s tunes until the writer heard the other guy say, “hey that one’s nice”, and “I can picture this with [this] feel”, or some instrumentation or arrangement. Generally, I would end up going with songs that paid tribute to the people I learned from, or were in some way a deep part of my consciousness.
There’s a sort of default bass/guitar & banjo/fiddle combo that we know works well and is always strong. But nothing is too sacred, and we would definitely play with instrumentation and other versions of the tune right to the downbeat of the first takes—and sometimes beyond.
Generally, you’d know pretty quickly if an instrument was going to be the right thing or not. You’d just feel within the first try if the instrument combo was good for that groove and able to hold it together and then make decisions from there.
Q: Are there any originals that you’d like to talk about?
Bryan: Mark has so many great tunes and I love “Kensington Station,” “My East Tennessee Home,” and all these other things that might just be for his friends’ ears on special occasions. “Cruso Flood” was the song I was anxious to bring to the table, because I still don’t know why that chorus came out in the way it did, but I’m really happy with it—and with the way it seemed to finish writing itself in the studio.
But I’m really happy for the other new tunes and songs that we’re bringing in now. We’ve gotten together a couple of times this year and worked up new material that’s already recorded and is on-stage and we’re loving playing it. I can’t wait for the albums to drop. They’ve made perfect complements in the set list to a lot of the other songs and helped the show flow so much better.
I’m looking forward to fans hearing a medley of mine and Mark’s tunes that we mashed together. It’s already recorded and videoed, and we just have to play with the on-stage logistics.
Q: The two of you span multiple generations in the roots music world. Mark, what’s something that Bryan has introduced you to, and Bryan, what’s one thing Mark’s introduced you to?
Mark: Bryan introduced me to the music of Brad Mehldau: duets he did with Chris Thile blew my mind. Bryan has had more of a handle on social media which has informed my more old-school sensibilities. I’ve come to this tradition from the outside; it’s been great to partner with someone who has roots in old-time and bluegrass, and it’s gratifying to find much common ground between us.
I love being in a support role playing bass in a band. Working with Bryan has given me a golden opportunity to step out front, engage with the audience, and entertain with the whole range of skills and musical styles that I have honed over the years, including bass, banjo, dancing, hambone, playing old-time, bluegrass, swing, and more. And we get along great!
Bryan: I think Mark introduced me to the Foghorn Stringband and maybe even The Duhks when I was first in the Claire Lynch band. Mark introduced me to Footworks, and actually showed me some basic steps that give insight into the dancing world that I had managed to escape during my childhood. There’s so much good old-time music that I wouldn’t know about if it weren’t for Mark. And I gotta say: Mark has a discerning palette when it’s time to order at the restaurant.
Don’t miss Mark Schatz and Bryan McDowell in concert this Saturday (August 26) at the “Honky Tonk on Hazel” house concert series in West Philadelphia. RSVP here to receive the address. Doors are at 7pm. Show at 8pm. $20-$30 suggested donation.
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